The invention relates to a continuously moving overhead cable transport installation, to which loads, notably gondolas or chairs, spaced along the line are coupled by detachable grips, the carriages being uncoupled from the cable at the entrance to station to run on a transfer rail before being recoupled to the cable at the exit from the station, the spacing of the carriages along the line being determined by the frequency of the departures, in which installation the running circuit of the carriages in the station between the uncoupling zone and the coupling zone to the cable comprises a continuously moving rhythm device section equipped with a rhythm device capable of varying the travelling time of the carriages on said rhythm device section, to correctly reposition a carriage staggered with respect to a periodic signal synchronized with the running of the cable.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,361 describes a rhythm device of the kind mentioned which maintains regular spacing of the gondolas or chairs, hereafter called carriages, throughout the day. This device operates perfectly to compensate an accidental staggering of a carriage, due among other things to a driving incident or to local braking, but it gives rise to certain problems when variations occur affecting the whole installation, for example when the jacks or tension counterweights of these installations lengthen or shorten the useful length of the cable and thereby the travelling time of the carriages, which must all be repositioned correctly. The adjustment margin is set in terms of these general variations and naturally of the risks of individual staggering, and it quickly becomes great and incompatible with high capacities implying minimum spacings of the carriages.
The object of the present invention is to improve the abovementioned rhythm device with a view to reducing its operations and to achieve an installation with a high capacity without the risk of collision between the cars and without the latter stopping.